Who Was BKS Iyengar

Google Pays Tribute To The Man That Introduced Yoga To the West

This week Google paid tribute to BKS Iyengar by making a doodle to celebrate what would have been his 97th birthday. But who was BKS Iyengar and what impact did he have on yoga? This article showcases the life of this yoga legend and details his efforts to increase awareness of yoga from its roots in India to the western countries. His influence truly shaped the history of yoga as we know it.

Check out the article below and celebrate the life of a true marvel

Google is marking the birthday of BKS Iyengar, the guru who took yoga to the West, with one of its famous doodles.

Today Iyengar yoga is taught in more than 70 countries and its founder is credited with doing more than anyone else to popularise the discipline, first in India and then in the rest of the world.

Iyengar, whose full name is Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar, died in 2014 but Monday would have been his 97th birthday .
He was born in 1918 into a poor family in southern India – one of 13 children, of whom only 10 survived.
He was sickly as a child – suffering from malaria and typhoid – and was introduced to yoga by a brother-in-law who ran a school in Mysore as part of an effort to restore his health.

At the age of 18 Iyengar became a teacher in the city of Pune, practising what he called an “art and science”. It was in Pune that he began to teach Menuhin.
The violinist was so impressed that he invited his guru to Switzerland in 1954.
It was the break that launched him on the West, and visits to the US and the rest of Europe followed.

“The West knows yoga because of Iyengar. He introduced simple props and aids like ropes, blankets, wall to facilitate people to make it easy for the masses,” said Yogi Santatmananda Saraswati of Swami Dayananda Ashram, in Rishikesh, at the time of his death.